


Birds of a Feather

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Hollis Family Series - Michelle Magorian
Genre: Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 19:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1084716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ralph shows his family to Jessica, and Jessica shows them to him in a way he hadn't seen them before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birds of a Feather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bookwormsarah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookwormsarah/gifts).



> Many thanks to Doranwen & kurushi for their help with this story!

Ralph thought he was doing a good job of seeming calm, but the bus ride was barely half over when Jessica's fingers folded around his and squeezed.

He squeezed back as he looked over at her. When he opened his mouth to speak, she shook her head quickly and said, "Honestly, if you ask me one more time if it's all right, or try to tell me anything else about how I won't like it, I will show your mother that picture I drew of you in the snorkel and flippers. I have it in my sketchbook."

Ralph nearly choked, and he blushed almost painfully. It wasn't the snorkel and flippers so much as what he was, or wasn't, wearing between them. "You wouldn't."

"Try me," Jessica said, putting her chin up. "I've already shown it to _my_ mother."

Ralph's mouth dropped open, and Jessica added cheerfully, "She thought it was rather good but the perspective was a bit off. I'll have to try it again next summer, won't I?"

Ralph faced front again, staring through the windscreen of the bus and trying not to think about posing like that for Jessica again, nor about Mrs. Duke having seen his picture, nor especially--

"You don't really have it in your sketchbook, do you? Right now?"

"Don't worry, the pages are clipped together," Jessica assured him cheekily. "I won't flash it at everyone by mistake. Only if you drive me to it," she added, poking him hard in the ribs.

"It's just," Ralph said, waving his hand helplessly. Jessica had seen his parents' home before--she'd come with her mother a few times to help in the fortnight after Josie was born--but it was something else again to be bringing her home on one of his rare nights off during her Christmas holidays to eat supper with his family. She was properly his sweetheart now--girlfriend, Jessica insisted on calling herself--and he was bringing her to see them in that light. She was going to look at his family and their home with her artist's eye. He wasn't sure he was ready to know what they would look like to her, when she had captured them on paper.

"Stage fright," Jessica diagnosed confidently. "Or rather, not-on-stage fright, isn't that it?"

"Yes," Ralph sighed, taking her hand again and holding on firmly. He couldn't paint his house and fill it with props. He couldn't tell all his family where to stand and prompt them so that their lines flowed smoothly. He had to let Jessica see them as they really were, no stage managing allowed. "Yes."

"That's all right, then," Jessica said simply. "Either way, the show must go on. Look, we're here."

The driver pulled the bus to a halt, calling out their stop. Ralph helped Jessica to her feet and muttered to himself, "Curtain and beginners, five minute call."

* * *

It took them a bit less than ten minutes to reach the house from the bus stop. He looked over at Jessica often, trying to see his bombed-out street, his dilapidated little house, as she saw it. Her eyes moved quickly, taking in everything, tracing the contours of the rubble and the lines of the roof, and then he led her up to the front door and inside. 

Elsie was waiting for them practically at the door. "Come in, come in, everything's ready!" She turned and skipped back to the kitchen, leading them quickly past the parlor which had become Elsie's own room, now that Joan was living down in Kent.

In the kitchen the table had been set with an extra place for Jessica. That still left the table less crowded than it used to be with Joan and Auntie Win, so no one had to sit on the bed tonight. There was a loaf of bread at the center of the table, with a dish of butter beside it; both rations had been carefully saved for this special supper. 

His mother was at the range, stirring the soup, while Josie sat safe in her cot to one side. His father and Harry were just coming in from the scullery, drying their hands, and Elsie was waiting by the foot of the table to gesture Ralph and Jessica toward their seats.

"Oh, bread, brilliant," Jessica said, sounding really pleased. "We've only had it on Sundays at school since half-term."

His mother and father both looked pleased at that, and there was a bustle, getting everyone settled at their places. Ralph and Jessica sat side by side across from Harry and Elsie, with his mother and father opposite each other. Josie, as always, started to fuss as soon as everyone else had sat down without her. His mother lifted her out of her cot once the soup had been dished out, and held the baby on her lap while she ate with her other hand.

Josie didn't fuss after that, and Ralph passed the crust of his bread over for her to chew on so she wouldn't steal Mum's. No one needed any prompting, at least. The conversation was easy but strange, hearing Jessica's posh schoolgirl accents mixing with his family's. Elsie, after half an hour, sounded exactly like her, but at least no one accused Elsie of putting on airs anymore.

After dinner Ralph jumped up to help his mother clear the table, catching Jessica's eye nervously. Jessica rolled her eyes but took her cue. 

"Elsie," she said, "would you mind if I sketched you a bit? I need to practice for my art class while I'm on holiday."

"Me and Harry both," Elsie insisted immediately. "Together. Harry, you have to sit still and tell me about work while Jessica draws us."

"Ain't much to tell, Else," Harry said with a self-important world-weariness, but he let Elsie pose him and smiled uncertainly as Jessica found her rucksack and pulled out her sketchbook. Ralph ducked out to the scullery to help his mother with the pots and dishes, and she smiled at him over the sink as they scrubbed. 

"I do like her, you know, Ralph," his mother said gently. "She don't fit so well with the Hollises, but she fits with you."

"I'm a Hollis," Ralph pointed out. "Elsie's a Hollis, and she and Jessica get on just fine. And you and Harry don't mind her, that's half the family at least."

His mother smiled a little, shaking her head, but she didn't argue. It wasn't as if Ralph didn't know what she meant; he'd begun shyly picturing someday getting married to Jessica, but he couldn't imagine taking her down hopping with his father's family, though she'd probably find it a great adventure. She had quick hands, and at night by the fires she'd draw pictures of Gram and Ralph's aunts and cousins....

His mother laughed. "Get on with you, then, I can manage the rest of this. You go turn that calf-eyed look on Jessica."

"Mum," Ralph protested, but she prodded him playfully with a spoon and Ralph gave in and returned to the warm kitchen, only to find his father sitting in his mother's chair at the table, holding Josie on his lap and tickling her chin. 

"Smile for the artist, there," he said, and Josie giggled and grabbed at Dad's hand. Ralph went and peered over Jessica's shoulder--she'd captured Josie in a few quick, curving lines, and was sketching the soft smile on his father's face as he looked down at Josie. Ralph shot Jessica an admiring look; he hadn't been at all sure they'd be able to convince his father to let himself be sketched. Having him hold Josie was a clever way to do it.

Ralph sat down again beside Jessica. Elsie looked up from the newspaper she was sharing with Harry to say, "Are you sure the pantomime doesn't need me, Ralph?"

"As soon as one of the other children comes down with a sore throat, you'll be the first to know," Ralph assured her firmly. "But you're not variety, Elsie, you're legit. You'd be wasted in pantomime."

"Hmph," Elsie replied, but she didn't argue any further. Ralph was pretty sure she couldn't actually scheme her way into the pantomime without someone at the Palace telling him what she was doing. 

Loyally, Harry said, "It's probably more fun to watch it than to act in it, anyway, really."

Elsie met Ralph's gaze in superior understanding. It was never more fun to watch than to act, not really. He gave her a sympathetic smile and launched into telling her and Harry about the pantomime costumes and props. Every so often he glanced over to see that his father was still in place, playing with Josie while Jessica finished her sketching.

For a moment, Ralph felt as if they were carrying this off. Then his mother came into the kitchen and his father stood up abruptly, holding out Josie. "Here, Ellen. Your turn to have your portrait done, Jessica must be done with me by now."

Ralph's jaw dropped as he realized his father had known. He turned to look at Jessica and she said, "Sometimes you just have to ask, Ralph."

Elsie giggled, Harry snorted, and Jessica burst out into a bright, pealing laugh. His mother and father were both laughing too, and Ralph stood up and walked round the table to take Josie, who was looking as left out of the joke as he was. He cuddled her against his chest and she smiled up at him. He couldn't help smiling back. He'd take sympathy from anyone in his family, even if it was only his baby sister.

"Ooh, Ralph, hold right there," Jessica said abruptly, and Ralph looked over without turning his head to see her grabbing her sketchbook again. Jessica glanced up at him, grinned, and then began sketching again.

* * *

A few days later Ralph stopped in to Mrs. Duke's and was sent straight through to the conservatory. Jessica was there, kneeling by the fire with a canvas propped up against the ottoman facing it. She looked up at Ralph with a grin.

"It's done! Except the drying, I do hope I can get it dry by Christmas. But come and look, anyhow, tell me what you think."

"It's grand," Ralph said firmly, even before he'd come round the ottoman to see it.

Jessica stuck her tongue out. "You would say that. But it's my first commission, come, tell the truth."

Ralph knelt down beside her and looked at the group portrait he'd asked her to make--hardly a commission, it was only her gift to him, which would in turn be his gift to his parents. 

It was well done, technically, as he'd known it would be; Jessica wouldn't have agreed to make the picture in the first place if she couldn't do it well. It was a good picture, but Ralph was distracted by the strangeness of seeing his own face looking back at him from the middle of the picture. Harry stood to one side of him and Elsie to the other, with his mother and father seated in front of them, Dad holding Josie on his lap and holding Mum's hand. Everyone was smiling, the same smiles he'd seen on each of them at one time or another, but all together, all at once, with Ralph right in the middle of them.

They looked like a family, Ralph realized, and it shouldn't have been a surprise. They were a family. And yet Ralph had gotten so used to thinking of things as bad, thinking that no one understood him, that he didn't fit in with them and they didn't fit together. Only Jessica had assembled them all on the canvas and made it look right.

"You look more like your father than I thought," Jessica remarked. "The shape of the forehead, the proportions of your faces. I might not have seen it if I hadn't been painting you both, but it's there."

Ralph nodded, still staring at the picture, trying to take it in. Jessica had seen this in them, somehow, when Ralph hadn't seen it himself. It didn't feel like a lie, or like something she had made up out of the pieces of them. It felt true.

"Ralph?" Jessica said hesitantly, sounding less than perfectly sure for the first time. "Is it all right? Do you like it?"

Ralph finally turned to look at her, and grinned helplessly as he gathered her into a warm hug. "I love it," he said. "It's my family."


End file.
